Recently, surgery is performed using an endoscope operation system having a plurality of medical devices. In an endoscope operation system, when an organization of a living body is removed using an insufflation device for expanding a visceral cavity and a treating device etc. for treating an affected part, or hemostasis is performed using a high frequency cautery device, these treatments can be performed while watching images captured by an endoscope.
The endoscope operation system includes a plurality of medical devices for an endoscope operation, a system controller for controlling the medical devices, and a display operation device, etc. Thus, since the endoscope operation system is configured by a plurality of devices, it is necessary to use a common communication protocol to enable communications among the devices. However, manufacturers of medical devices adopt different communication methods and/or communication protocols for their own medical devices. Therefore, a communication converter is used to convert the communication methods and/or communication protocols to enable communications between them.
The communication system refers to a system of communications based on the physical or electrical configuration of communications such as infrared light communications, USB (Universal Serial Bus) communications, RS-232C communications, Controller Area Network (CAN), or Ethernet communications, etc. A difference in communication system refers to a difference in physical or electrical standards in various communications such as a difference between wireless communication and cable communication, a difference in shapes of a connectors, etc. (therefore, the difference disables a physical or electrical connection to be performed). A communication protocol refers to a normally adopted communication protocol, that is a logical connection as compared with the physical or electrical connection in the above-mentioned communication system.